Welcome to another edition of The ROHbot Report – the only article you need for all the Ring of Honor news you have to know. Before the huge announcement that ROH will go on hiatus following “Final Battle” until April of next year, ROH scheduled an HonorClub-exclusive event tailor-made to set the stage for ROH’s 2021 grand finale. Lets see what happened when honor was for all.
Honor For All Results; November 14th, 2021; Baltimore, MD
– Pure Rules Taylor Rust defeated Tracy Williams (Match)
– Four Corner Survival: Holidead defeated Quinn McKay, Trish Adora, and Vita VonStarr
– GCW Tag Team Championship: The Briscoes defeated EFFY & AJ Gray (Match)
– Jonathan Gresham defeated Brody King
– ROH World Tag Team Championship: The OGK defeated La Faccion Ingobernable (Dragon Lee & Kenny King to become the NEW CHAMPIONS
– ROH World Championship (No Disqualification) Bandido defeated Demonic Flamita to retain
Ring of Honor’s last major event prior to “Final Battle” and the impending hiatus looked to deliver something magical before the big night in December – no better example of that happened in the ROH World Tag Team Championship match. As noted in the preview, the stats were in the challengers’ favor for victory due to almost every major ROH event in 2021 seeing the ROH World Tag Team Championship changing hands. The early going saw the intended champions dominating, only for The OGK unintentionally letting Dragon Lee get his feet moving for dives that turned the tides. With Kenny King mostly controlling the match’s tempo, Mike Bennett found himself almost fuming in hopes of getting a tag. When Taven finally tagged out, “The Miracle” went wild with everything from forearms to brain busters in hopes of downing his opposition.
But, as with many LFI matches, the numbers were beginning to grow as the legal men started waning in their chances of winning. Bestia del Ring stopped a sure pin on his son. Then the unexpected happened as Max the Impaler arrived alongside Amy Rose – LFI’s former manager that King fired months ago. Max put a stop to Bestia and left King distracted long enough for Taven to cradle him for the three count to give OGK their second ROH World Tag Team title reign. Rose finally avenged her disrespect at the hands of LFI (capped off by Max actually spearing King after the match) while Taven & Bennett’s return to tag team prominence puts them in the position of champions heading into one of the most important shows in ROH’s history following a fantastic tag team encounter.
The show’s other two matches prove a lot more chaotic in nature than its ROH World Tag Team title counterpart. First there was The Briscoes defending the GCW Tag belts for the first time against Game Changer Wrestling representatives & ROH-debuting EFFY & AJ Grey. What started off as a pretty stereotypical tag team battle transformed into anything but as chairs got involved starting with, interestingly enough, the challengers as they pitched the intended weapons into the ring and choked their opponents.
Mark suffered a cut on his head after going head-first into a steel chair and Jay almost disabled by a blockbuster & a frog splash through a table. But the challengers’ intentions of using weapons to put The Briscoes down came back to haunt them as Mark was able to drive EFFY through a table at ringside with his patented Froggy Bow that the latter set up. Grey was alone and couldn’t stop the Jay Driller, let alone the three count that followed. Wildly different from the ROH Tag title match, this one was wild as wild could get without going overboard; though it could’ve benefited from a little more time so some of the matches bigger moments could breathe.
Unlike the GCW Tag match that had an unspoken openness in regards to the rules, the ROH World Championship bout was announced as a No Disqualification encounter beforehand; and the challenger took advantage of the allowance of weapons almost immediately as Bandido got grounded by chair shots early. Bandido had to take all the pain and use it to fuel him until he had the chance to knock his fellow luchador to the floor before executing the Fosbury Flop. While Flamita attempted to disable the champ’s legs early on with chair attacks, Bandido did the same by aiming at Demonic’s back utilizing the barricade & steel ring post. The violence escalated as did the big maneuvers including Bandido taking a drop toe hold into an open chair, the challenger being back dropped against a propped table that didn’t break, and “The Most Wanted” almost losing off a sick sit-out power bomb.
The closing moments proved Bandido was determined to win by any means necessary as he utilized a low blow to cap off his 21-Plex after Flamita attempted to win with a low blow-roll up combo moments earlier. Unlike the low blow that the challenger looked to win with, Bandido’s dishonorable attack stunned Flamita enough that Demonic fell to the 21-Plex for another thrilling successful title defense for Bandido. Similar to what happened on ROH TV when Jonathan Gresham motioned he was coming for the World title after a Bandido title victory, EC3 – who was doing commentary for the main event – claimed he could take ROH into a “free” era by winning the World title. What this means for the very near future is yet to be understood.
Gresham also had a stellar showing during this event as he fought through a severe disadvantage at the match’s start as he felt Brody King’s Ganso Bomb in the first minute. From that point on, “The Octopus” was fighting from behind; getting slammed against the ring post, battered with forearms, and actually halted when attempting comeback moments via overhead tosses & suplexes; though one of Brody’s intended attacks – a knife-edge chop at ringside – saw his right hand hit the steel ring post instead of its target. Gresham refused to stay down like a mighty warrior, keeping his eyes open even through great pain to spy opportune moments including avoiding a cannonball in the corner that the former Pure champion avoided.
King found himself stunned after the failed cannonball and the subsequent senton that saw Brody hit nothing but canvas. A mix of missed attacks and his hurting hand left King prone to hand-aimed strikes and frequent sleeper attempts. The face of VLNCE UNLTD started losing his base and eventually & unlikely allowed Gresham to put King in position for his patented running forearm on a seated opponent to the back of Brody’s head. Making the cover, Gresham won this spectacular David versus Goliath affair to essentially stake his claim at fighting the ROH World champion at “Final Battle”.
Though the Pure Championship wasn’t on the line during this show (Josh Woods did accompany “Hot Sauce” to the ring), Tracy Williams and Taylor Rust competed in a really good Pure Rules match where the two went from throwing forearms to the former ROH World Tag Team & Television champion going after his opponent’s left arm. Rust’s plan to counter with leg locks failed (losing all of his rope breaks while avoiding arm bars in the process), so he went after the known weak shoulder of Williams. Rust’s plan worked to perfection as he caught Tracy in the Goya Lock after initiating another strike exchange to verbally submit “Hot Sauce” to start the show in fine fashion.
Contested under lucha rules, the women’s Four Corner Survival had several moments were everyone had their chance to shine. In the early going it was about the largest woman in the match, Holidead, stopping the grappling of Trish Adora before Quinn McKay and Vita VonStarr traded headlocks & takedowns until Holidead apparently realized that this match was one fall to a finish. Holidead’s strength allowed her to control the match a majority of the time, slamming and even catching her incoming opponents before tossing them into her other adversaries.
It wasn’t until Adora reentered that things temporarily fell apart for Holidead while her opposition almost gained victory out of nowhere including Quinn pulling off a crazy impressive gorilla press slam on VonStarr. In her attempt to keep the momentum and disable her opponents at ringside, McKay dove on Adora while Holidead was reentering the ring with Holidead taking advantage of Quinn’s work on Vita to execute Darkness Falls that resulted in VonStarr being pinned by Holidead. As expected, this Four Corner Survival match was fun & wild, and it seemed everyone had a chance to win at any time.
Clocking in at just two hours, “Honor For All” breezes by with not a single bad or below average match on the show. All the title matches deserve to be seen, as well as Gresham-King while the show’s first two bouts do a great job setting the stage for what’s to come in terms of upped quality.
And there you have it. Show that love, or like, for The ROHbot Report on its Facebook page. Here’s to a great week for you and yours; and as always, thanks for reading.
